to warn you about this company offering solutions to child's anxiety and school refusal?

[Hols12345]

They advertise on Facebook as Young Vibes, Your Child Freedom Formula, Peaky Parents, Anxiety, Our Formula, and various other names.

They use a 'high ticket' sales technique, where they offer a webinar and then urge you to book a call. The call is a high-pressure sales call.

They have changed their name quite a few times over the last year, after they were investigated by the Advertising Standards agency - www.asa.org.uk/rulings/tomwill--holdings--ltd-g21-1116080-tomwill--holdings--ltd.html, and they were featured in a BBC radio 4 documentary www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zt9y

There are a few threads on the child mental health boards - here's one. www.mumsnet.com/talk/child_adolescent_mental_health/4239684-your-child-freedom-formula-has-anyone-tried-it?page=1

On the threads there are people from 'both sides', including some who have been through the program, so it's well worth having a read if you are thinking of making the call.

So you're breaking the law then? As only an approved adoption support agency can offer therapeutic services to adopted children, by law, which you are not?

I will stand and swear on a Bible, my own life and my children's life that I have never 'Sock Puppeted ' here or anywhere else. You will be able to rerify this with Mums Net and my IP address.

well someone was doing that at the beginning. I noticed all the typos and so reported those posts which then got removed. Your very first post also got deleted - the one from the original thread. I also noticed some of the same typos in your marketing. So that’s strange.

Is there an agency or regulatory body or something that such things can be reported to?

Well, I wasn't aware of you and your company two years ago @SamanthaRobinsYoungVibes, when I think the thread in question was active. But I've had a bit of a look back and certainly Mumsnet seemed to think there was sock puppetry going on, as did as many of the active posters at the time.

Here is the thread https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/child_adolescent_mental_health/4279596-Your-child-freedom-formula-child-anxiety-programmes-thread-2?page=1

I also noticed that on 12 July 2021 a poster on that thread describes (over a few posts) her experience with you and your team (presumably the same 'inside team' as you say are with you now). She says she is desperately worried because you had started a county court claim against her for £10k after she had tried to take action against the 'unqualified medical advice' you had given her 'suicidal disabled daughter', and tried obtain a refund from you (she did get 80% of her money back from her credit card.)

I don't know her, any more than I know you, except from what you write and and post online, but I know who seems the more trustworthy to me. Others can reach their own conclusions.

I guess it'd be Ofsted as that's who regulates adoption support services

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adoption-support-agencies-introduction-to-registration/introduction-to-adoption-support-agencies

This is indeed very disturbing. To hear that schools are actually signposting parents to you (a paid for service with no research-led theory and charging to boot) is disgraceful. Have to say, my inbox is still being flooded several times a week with your videos & sales pitches which prey on vulnerable parents leads me to think nothing has changed in your model except your payment plan options. Can you signpost us to your accounts for the last two financial years with P&L and Balance Sheet please?

@SamanthaRobinsYoungVibes I've still not had a response!!

Their accounts are here.

I don’t fully understand accounts but I think they are in the minus £90k as of 2022. What I don’t know, is if this is normal for a new business or not. 2021 was minus £6k

There are qualifications did treating children with anxiety, they are called university degrees, ranging from clinical psychology, mental health nursing to only name a couple.
anxiety IS both physical, psychological and has behavioural consequences.

I still got no answer as to where my 1:1 sessions were offered. I asked Davina, she said there were only the parent zoom sessions which are optional.

Sam I am beyond annoyed at you calling me the end of May to say that the company was ending the 2nd June and giving me a sob story about bereavement and financial difficulties. Yet here you are, still up and running, defending and still claiming to know it all. Yes I get you are ‘only trying to help’ fact is your are not, you are harming. I only have to read these threads and my blood boils! You lied to get rid of me.

@SamanthaRobinsYoungVibes STILL NO ANSWER as to why you took our autistic child on!

It was not that long ago Doctors were performing lobotomies on young people, this is now banned and replaced with sedation.

What are you talking about?? Lobotomies haven't been replaced with sedation, what an odd thing to say.

I understand the fear of change and revolutionary new methods arriving on the scene and swimming against the tide

I can't see fear of change in the posts here, or opposition to new methods. Just parents not wanting children damaged and paretns ripped off

This is why despite all the awful comments here and the profiteering radio program we have never given up.

How does a radio programme profiteer??

The truth is, behind all the propaganda, iswe recover children, and we do so at a cost that everyone can now afford.

You've shared no substantiated evidence of that

Without this thread we would have learnt nothing

What does that even mean? The way you are posting is so odd, and comes across as very unprofessional

"fear of change and revolutionary new methods arriving on the scene and swimming against the tide"

This was never what I was concerned about. As I described on a previous thread (my username was Mibb and Mibb2), I took part in a pilot project through CAMHS which was a parent support group working alongside our kids who were receiving CBT or other therapies. It was challenging and I'd say it was the single most effective thing for our family. NB. I know that CAMHS is overstretched and that I had an unusually positive experience.

It's well known that anxiety is experienced as a physical symptoms in the body and that the body cannot stay in 'fight or flight' mode indefinitely. And that understanding this can help both anxious children and their parents.

What worried me from the start was the sharing of children's and families' confidential information, high pressure sales tactics and aggressive, manipulative and reactionary responses to reviews or scrutiny.

I understand that you've apologised for the marketing, Sam, but I still cannot see how you could have allowed that to happen no matter how naive you were when starting out. How can vulnerable families put their trust in someone who could think at any point that this was an appropriate way to sign up clients for this type of business?

I think you may have perceived me (Mibb or Mibb2) to be part of the 'group of mums from here'. I was very active on the early threads but I was never part of a group, and I wasn't aware of any group. If someone called you "scum" that's uncalled for and I can understand you being upset. I still don't think your business Facebook page was an appropriate place to lash out aggressively at any Mumsnet user who might have questions about your business.

The regular posters in the child mental health forum, as far as I am aware, are mainly parents who have experience of caring for a child or young person suffering with their mental health. These are the 'social media mums' who you keep referring to eg in the recent marketing email where you strongly suggested that these 'mums' are responsible for children taking their own lives. Just have a think about that.

I'm glad you've acknowledged how much help you've got from these threads. You've certainly made a lot of outward changes to the way your business presents itself.

I'm not a prospective customer so I'm sure my opinion doesn't matter to you, but for me, all this is too little, too late.

I don't believe, for even a second, that schools are sending children/families to them.

Just more bullshit.

I can’t believe this company (or variations by name) is still going. I made a comment on their Facebook advertising months ago and subsequently was blocked from commenting again as I wanted to let people know that I had my suspicions about them. They then popped up as another company name and I commented again. Lo and behold I was blocked again. For parents with children who struggle hugely with anxiety, like me, at the worst and darkest times we all look for help and can be sucked in by the most amazing sales pitches. It’s awful these people are still allowed to carry on. They really should be ashamed of themselves.